


Would You Be So Kind?

by TeethFarie



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Gladiators, Hurt/Comfort, Memories, Multi, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-04
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-17 02:21:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29834559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TeethFarie/pseuds/TeethFarie
Summary: ‘Scourge!’‘Scourge!’‘Scourge!’He hates that name. He wishes they’d stop cheering—no one should want to see another person die. And yet here they are, cheering for his victory, cheering for his demise.
Relationships: Muriel (The Arcana)/Reader
Comments: 1
Kudos: 37





	Would You Be So Kind?

**Author's Note:**

> I have many a thought about Muriel’s gladiator days but this is just one of them.

The sky is too beautiful for a day like this. The chanting roars in his ears and dirt kicks up into clouds of dust with each shuffle of feet, each body that falls. He tries to push it from his mind, dissociate from the present—the atrocities he’s forced to commit. The sun beats down on his skin and he feels his blood boil. The crowd chants.

_ Scourge! _

_ Scourge! _

_ Scourge! _

He  _ hates  _ that name. He wishes they’d stop cheering—no one should want to see another person die. And yet here they are, cheering for his victory, cheering for his demise. The man below him shields himself with his arms, shaking in fear as his eyes silently plead for mercy. The Scourge doesn’t pause, he doesn’t hesitate—he heaves his axe up over his shoulder and delivers the final blow.

_ Crack! _

The man's skull splits like a melon and the victor feels like a  _ monster. _

  
  


He doesn’t deserve help, not after what he’s done, yet he’s sent to the medic anyway. In the beginning, he takes the supplies and tends to his wounds himself. He scowls and barricades himself in a corner, stitches his gashes himself. He doesn’t want to be seen, he doesn’t want to be touched.

Though when the threat of infection bubbles at the thick thread of the sutures, he bares his flesh and lets it be cleaned. He didn’t deserve the gentle touch of the medic, he doesn’t deserve their hushed voice telling him what they’re doing before they do it.

Their hands are practiced with each dab of ointment, each stinging cleanse of alcohol, each swift pass of the needle through his skin. “At least clean your hands next time you stitch yourself up, ok?” They wrap the treated wound in fresh gauze and tape it off. It was a particularly deep cut in his side, over his rib cage that stretched about four inches long and a half an inch wide. He tried to take care of it himself, though with the awkward angle and insufficient tools, it turned for the worst.

He only huffs in acknowledgment. He doesn’t often talk to them, but he’s made progress in conversation from his previous method of ignoring them. “Dirty hands cause infection, and so do dirty tools. It’s good we caught it before it got too bad—if you got sepsis you would need to amputate the limb and you can’t do that if it’s on your torso…” he drones out your voice after a while. He can’t really bring himself to care about the consequences.

If he was honest, he didn’t care if he lived or died. But when someone is so insistently annoying about taking better care of himself, he figured he’d listen to shut them up. “Sir?” Their voice breaks his thoughts. A frown tugs at his lips. He turns his head to look at them. Their eyes shining with unshed tears. Why would they cry about this? About him? 

“Be careful, ok?”

  
  


Muriel still lives with the memories of his gladiator days, unwanted and foul. They plague his dreams and keep him up at night. The visions of bloodshed so intense he can almost smell the stench of copper and taste the tang of it on his tongue when it splatters against his face.

Warm arms break him from his thoughts. He turns his head to look at you. A small smile graces his lips. You’re groggy with sleep and tugging him back to lay down. “C’mere, s’late.” You can barely keep your eyes open but you welcome Muriel back in your embrace from where he sits at the edge of the bed. 

He complies so easily—with your soft touches and kind words, how could he not? He lays back down and the nightmare is pushed to the back of his mind. You hold him as tightly as a tired child with a beloved teddy bear would, pressing a kiss to his forehead. “Bad dream?” You ask, sighing a breath of relief when Muriel relaxes against you. 

“Yeah.” 

“You’re safe now, Muri.” 

Muriel can feel your hands carding through his hair and scratching his scalp. It’s gentle and fills him with a sickly sweet warmth. He wouldn’t tell you much of his past in the coliseum, he wouldn’t tell you that you were the one to treat his wounds way back when, a fresh Vesuvian with a need to help. It was a ray of hope then, but it’s dulled in comparison to the bright light you bathe him in now; kissing away his tears and filling his chest with laughter rather than fear.

“I know.”

  
  
  
  



End file.
